But that doesn’t mean I have given up. So my first gaming related resolution for 2012 is the same as last year: play more. We actually scheduled our first game for the second weekend in January where I want to wrap up the Call of Cthulhu game from New Year’s Eve.

But aside from that I want to run a campaign from start to finish in 2012. It doesn’t need to be long, but a story arc that covers at least a dozen sessions would be a nice change. I have a couple of ideas what I would love to run in the new year, but before making any plans I should consult my players. More than once I’ve made plans for a game that I never ran because I couldn’t interest my players in it.

One of the things I would love to do is running a sandbox campaign with Lamentations of the Flame Princess. I recently got my print copy of Carcosa and I utterly love that book. The setting is extremely weird, has a lot of Lovecraft influences and looks and reads great. I’ll also have to think of a way on how to make use of Vornheim, too, since it’s another book I would like to use someday. I am not sure if my players are into old-school D&D, but it might be worth a try.

When it comes to game design I still have a couple of unfinished projects on my harddrive that need some more work. So another goal for 2012 is to at least finish one of those projects. Heck, perhaps I should resurrect the Gearbox project or finally finish that game I’ve been working on in secret for way too long…

So what are your gaming resolutions for 2012? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

No related posts.

My girlfriend and I played a lot of Star Wars: The Old Republic recently, which is a lot of fun. It’s the most immersive MMO I’ve played so far and Verena and I are enjoying it immensely. The game also makes me want to run some Star Wars pen & paper game, but at the moment, I have neither the time nor the players needed to start a new campaign.

On New Year’s Eve I’ve run a Call of Cthulhu game for a couple of friends. I picked the first episode of the Age of Cthulhu campaign by Goodman games, which has an interesting story but has some issues that made it harder to run than I expected. But we still had a lot of fun.

And there’s something else I want to tell you about. I got a very special gift this Christmas. Some of you probably know that I am interested in astronomy that’s why I picked the nickname Stargazer a couple of years back. I own a small telescope but I don’t go out watching the skies as often as I would like. So my girlfriend thought she gave me some incentive to do so. She gave me a star as one of her Christmas gifts! One star in the Draco constellation is now registered¹ as “Stargazer’s World” and I have the documents to prove it. So, next time you look up into the sky, look out for “Stargazer’s World”.

1) Yes, I know that only the IAU can actually name stars, but I don’t mind. And the deed really looks great on the kitchen wall.

No related posts.

In Austria, southern Bavaria and South Tyrol young men dress up as Krampus in the first week of December to participate in so-called Krampus Runs (Krampuslauf) where they roam the streets frightening children with rusty chains and bells. Usually these runs are in the night of December 6th (Krampusnacht).

During the Inquisition attempts were made to stamp the tradition out. Dressing up like a devil-like creature was actually punishable by death back then. And even in the early 20th century the practice was discouraged by the Austrian government.

But what if there’s a deeper reason why people try to stop these Krampus Runs? What if the costumes and the runs are actually part of a cannibalistic ritual from the dawn of time? Thinking about this for a while gave me a few ideas for a Call of Cthulhu scenario.

An adventure could start by a group of investigators coming into a remote village in the Bavarian Alps. There have been rumors of children disappearing during the first week of December. While most of the families are concerned, a few influential families downplay the whole affair.

Looking closer into the child disappearances, the investigators realize that they all vanished during the Krampuslauf and some witnesses claim they have seen someone in a Krampus costume carry a large sack into the woods.

The investigator’s job is now to find out what actually happened and – if possible – save the children before it’s too late. What the cult does is up to the GM. Perhaps they sacrifice the children to summon a horrible creature, or they use an evil ritual to transform themselves into the mythical Krampus. Another possibility is that – when the stars are right – the young men actually transform into the Krampus unwillingly and have to consume the flesh of children. When they awake the next day, they don’t know what they did.

Of course I am sure that the actual Krampus celebrations are perfectly harmless. The worst thing that could happen to a celebrant participating in a Krampuslauf is probably a hangover after drinking too much Krampus schnapps. I wouldn’t rule out a few broken bones either. But when you look at it through the eyes of a Call of Cthulhu game master, things are much more sinister than they seem at first glance.

This post is part of the Nevermet Press Krampus Christmas Carnival. The artwork used in this post was created by Steven Austin especially for this event and was licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. More details on the Carnival can be found here.

And before I forget it: Happy Holidays!

P.S.: And when you’re at it, check Corvus’ post “The Mythos is Everywhere” on more ideas how to introduce Lovecraft’s nightmares into … everything!

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1. Legend – Help raising money for Child’s Play and get a cool RPG in exchange
2. Dungeoncraft: “It all started with a map”
3. The Heroes of Hougstran

The 139-paged PDF contains all the rules needed to play, two magic systems and a bestiary. Kudos to Cubicle 7 and Cakebread & Walton for releasing the rules for free. The PDF doesn’t contain any artwork, but that’s negligible especially since the PDF is mainly meant as a System Reference Document. The rules of the game can be used under the OGL.

If you are a fan of Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying and Runquest, you actually have the choice between quite a few different rule variants now. There’s Renaissance, Mongoose Publishing’s Legend, D101 Games’ OpenQuest, Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying and Goblinoid Games’ GORE. All those games are more or less compatible, so you can use material designed for one game in the other with ease.

Renaissance looks pretty interesting because it was created with the Renaissance era in mind. The magic system also looks pretty unique. If you’re looking for a skill-based RPG with a percentile dice mechanic, you should definitely check Renaissance out!

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1. Old-school renaissance
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3. Freebies: Marvel Super Heroes

There are five adventures set into the years 887, 1287, 1487, 1587 and 1887 respectively. The backcover blurb should give you a good overview of what The Red Eye of Azatoth has to offer:

Fear the Red Eye of Azathoth!

Kings die, nations crumble, and madness trails in the fiery wake of a comet called The Red Eye of Azathoth. Do you have what it takes to battle across history against the Mythos horrors that surface under its lurid glow?

• 887 AD, Holy Island, English Northumbria – As blood rain falls and the dead rise, Viking invaders and English monks must join forces or perish in a Lovecraftian nightmare.
• 1287 AD, Iwaizumi, Japan – Snowbound Samurai must unearth what lies behind the village where babies cannot cry and an abomination hangs lanterns that shriek with a thousand voices.
• 1487 AD, Valencia, Spain – Heretics must escape torture, prison, and the clutches of angels to expose the Spanish Inquisition’s true purpose.
• 1587 AD, Roanoke Colony, The New World – Colonists face flayed horrors that hammer on stretched-skin drums to reveal whose knife dug CROATOAN into the Lost Colony’s tree.
• 1887 AD, Desperation, Arizona Territory – In the series’ explosive magic-and-gunpowder climax, condemned gunfighters unravel the last skeins of the millennium-spanning mystery and stand alone against the full Mythos horror of The Red Eye of Azathoth!

Ia! Ia! Take your players to the mad reaches of our past with 108 pages of epic horror, complete with player handouts, new adversaries, and pregenerated Investigators for each time period.

Physically the adventure looks great (even in PDF form). There’s a nice page background that give the pages a slightly old feel without being distracting. The interior artwork and the maps are mostly in black & white but of great quality. That’s how I want my historical Call of Cthulhu adventures to look like.

Each adventure contains an appendix with pregenerated investigators for the era the adventure is set in. This is extremely helpful since the core CoC rules don’t cover the historical eras the campaign is set in. There are four pregenerated characters per adventure and there are some guidelines that should help you if you want to come up with your own investigators. Some of the adventures also introduce new skills, new spells and monsters that the GM can also use in adventures of his or her own design.

A big plus of the adventure anthology are the included handouts. Just print and cut out the handout before play and you’re ready to go. Especially the Investigator Handouts are very handy. They give the players information about who their investigators are, what they know, and what their goals and perspective are. Because of the focused nature of the adventures you need certain guidelines on how you’re supposed to play the investigators. Some players might find that restricting but I actually like it. If the players embrace the guidelines instead of fighting them it makes things much easier for them and the GM.

The Red Eye of Azatoth’s biggest strength is also its only weakness. Since the five adventures are set into different lands and eras the players can’t use the same characters through all five adventures. The campaign is tied together by the plot and by the underlying theme and not by the player characters. While this opens interesting opportunities it may turn off some players. And since the CoC core rules don’t support playing in the eras used in the campaign out of the box the GM might have to do some additional prep work if the players decide not to use the pregenerated investigators.

So why should you pick up The Red Eye of Azatoth? If you like historical CoC adventures you’ll not be disappointed. Each adventure is detailed enough that you can pretty much run it out of the box without additional prep work if you rely on the pregenerated investigators for each era. The handouts, maps, and artwork are well-made and should make the job of the GM much easier. Overall you get a story that spans the ages but if you wish you can run each adventure separately.

The 108-paged PDF sets you back $9.99, which is a fair price in my opinion. As far as I know the printed version was available to patrons only, but the PDF is now available for everyone through the KQ Store or DriveThruRPG. I think I found the adventure I am going to use for my New Year’s Eve game!

P.S.: Thanks to Shelly Baur for providing me with a review copy of that fine adventure!

Related posts:

1. When in doubt, run a one-shot!
2. My experiences with “Trail of Cthulhu”
3. New adventure for Dungeonslayers

That’s why I am asking for your help. What is your favorite Call of Cthulhu adventure and – more importantly – why? Can it be run in a single session? Is it still available for purchase and if so where? Especially a lot of the older Chaosium titles have been out of print for quite a while. If the adventure in question is available at RPGNow it would be a big plus.

By the way, are the Age of Cthulhu adventures by Goodman Games any good?

Related posts:

1. Call of Cthulhu Anniversary Edition
2. Ask the Readers: What’s your favorite rock band?
3. Ask The Readers: Who ya gonna call?

So a couple of days I decided to get an English-language version of that fine game. And since the 30th anniversary edition was available at my favorite German online shop Sphärenmeisters Spiele I decided to order it after all. And I have to admit I don’t regret buying it.

It’s a very good looking, leather-bound book with 320 pages printed on very heavy paper. The interior looks almost exactly like the German edition from Pegasus Spiele (Pegasus Spiele was actually credited for this), which was always far superior to the Chaosium original.

Here are some photos I took with my webcam after unpacking the book yesterday:

Suspicious looking guy holding a leather-bound tome	Warning! Looking at these images too closely may cause 1D6 SAN loss!

If you plan to get a copy of Call of Cthulhu any time soon, I recommend either picking up the latest German edition by Pegasus Spiele (which actually comes in two books) or the 30th Anniversary Edition.

Related posts:

1. New Edition of “Space: 1889″ in the works
2. Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition now available at DriveThruRPG
3. Ask the Readers: What’s your favorite Call of Cthulhu adventure?

Especially in autumn or winter I love to run horror games and what could be more blood-freezing than combining H.P. Lovecraft’s work with the cold war? I think I’ll pitch the idea to my players and if they show some interest, I’ll start working on that project as soon as I have enough free time.

The question that remains is what system shall I use. The simplest solution would probably be Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu. The system is easy enough and allows adventures from the 1890s to modern day with ease. Another possibility would be Realms of Cthulhu by Reality Blurs. Especially if the campaign should feature a good amount of action, it’s probably the best solution because it uses the Savage World rules. Last but not least Trail of Cthulhu by Pelgrane Press comes to mind. This game normally uses the 1930s as its setting, but as the adventure Castle Bravo has shown, it can be used for later centuries, too. Castle Bravo also combines the Mythos with atomic horror, so it can probably be used for inspiration, or even be run as part of said campaign.

Currently I think it would probably the best to set the campaign into the 1950s or 1960s. Most characters might have actually fought in WW2 and may even had their first encounter with the Mythos then. I also think that the McCarthy era in particular could form a great backdrop for such a campaign. Perhaps the players start as FBI agents following some leads on a group of Communists that are in fact cultists worshipping some Mythos entity.

I am not entirely sure about the details yet, but my plan is that things on Earth get increasingly worse during the campaign. Instead of stopping the coming apocalypse the player characters should be uncovering the events that lead to it. This is a big gamble. My players may actually hate it, because they can’t fight the inevitable. But in my opinion that’s what a combination of the Cthulhu Mythos and the cold war should be like. There’s no way out. The bombs will fall, Cthulhu will wake, humanity will be destroyed. But the way there can be quite exciting and even fun to play!

Related posts:

1. Review: Cthulhu Rising
2. Ia! Ia! Check out this great Realms of Cthulhu sale!
3. I AM CTHULHU!

The 220-paged book contains 11 horror short stories written by Clark Ashton Smith, who was one of major contributor’s to the so-called Cthulhu Mythos. The stories included in this book are:

• “The Ghoul”
• “A Rendering from the Arabic”
• “The Hunters from Beyond”
• “The Vaults of Abomi”
• “The Nameless Offspring”
• “Ubbo-Sathla”
• “The Werewolf of Averoigne”
• “The Eidolon of the Blind”
• “Vulthoom”
• “The Treader of the Dust”
• “The Infernal Star”

The book concludes with detailed notes on each tale, which give the reader some interesting background information.

Especially when you are already a fan of H.P. Lovecraft’s work you definitely should read Clark Ashton Smith, too. In my opinion this book is the perfect introduction to his work. Stories like “A Rendering from the Arabic” or “The Infernal Star” are classic Mythos stories, that feature everything you would expect from one of Lovecraft’s work. What actually surprised me that Clark Ashton Smith also set several of his tales on Mars. “The Vaults of Abomi”, “Ubbo-Sathla” and “The Eidolon of the Blind” are all set on the red planet and would work perfectly as inspiration for a Space 1889 game with some Lovecraftian twist.

I can wholeheartedly recommend this book to any Mythos fan. And since Smith’s stories are not as well known as the ones written by Lovecraft himself you have a good chance your players don’t know them. That makes using them as inspiration for your games much, much easier.

I got my copy of the book from Amazon.de, but I am sure you can easily get it through your local bookstore or any online book seller. The regular price is $14.95. Or you can order it directly from Chaosium.

Related posts:

1. Lovecraftian Week: Roundup post
2. H.P. Lovecraft and his works
3. So, you want to play a pulp genre game?

By the way, your favorite roleplaying games blog will be on hiatus over the Easter holidays. But we’ll be back on Tuesday with more quality content! So stay tuned.

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Don’t worry, this won’t be a post reminiscing about old characters, I think we are all tired of that. Michael actually suggested I should try to write a post with some player advice and despite some initial trepidation I jumped at the idea. As a longtime GM and casual player at first I thought I might be ill suited for the concept, but figured that I could bring a different perspective to player advice from my side of the screen.

Like I have said before, the advice given here is not wholly original, it builds on all sorts of different ideas I have read in countless gaming books, so thank you to all those that came before. I hope something of what I write here may be useful to some of you out there. Interested? Read on…

People game for different reasons, and there are lots of theories on the type of players and how to cater to their interests and strengths. But I propose you to consider the opposite scenario, how can you as a player help the Game Master. Some GMs love improvisation and run their games fast and loose, others are structured and rigid, some are amateur thespians and give every NPC a different voice, but all of them have something in common, they are telling a story!

Be they neophyte (isn’t that nicer than noob?) GMs or veterans with many notches on their screen, all GMs want to tell a story. When you make your character come alive you give the GM opportunities to tell a story around your character. Here are some five specific pieces of advice to help your do just this.

1. Look at the stats! Traditional RPGs all have stats, whether they call them attributes or some other fancy name. Here in the blog Michael asked whether we need them or not, and games such as Fate handle them in ways that already help this process of defining your character, but many games have you roll or spend points on attributes and quantify their numeric effect on the game and that’s that. So after you roll them, add the bonuses, go back and take a hard look at them.

Is your character strong but not as agile? Is he a bumbling muscle bound warrior, or a grizzled veteran who retains his strength but has suffered so many wounds that he has lost the nimbleness of his younger years? Asking questions such as these will help your character come alive.  I once rolled a Call of Cthulhu character with a very high Size attribute but low Strength and Constitution, so I decided he was a tall obese antiquarian, very sickly and always complaining about how heavy everything is.

2. Be quirky… Characters with quirks and some form of shtick can be tiresome or downright annoying in many forms of fiction, but despite what I told you before this is not a novel or a movie, it’s a game and we play it for fun.  Your GM may want to tell a story, but an RPG game is a different storytelling medium. Characters that have some quirk, a detail everybody can latch on to and associate with your character assures that he or she will be remembered by everyone around the table.

Let the quirk or detail come naturally from the stats or other rule details. If you can get away with an accent or distinctive mannerism go for it. Not everyone feesl comfortable hamming it up so if you don’t act it out make sure you mention it and work it into your description. Try to have at least one quirk. The more experienced you become the easier the details will come to you. Keeping with the example of the Call of Cthulhu character, after looking at the stats I decided he would always be out of breath. I would describe him as sweaty, always patting his brow down with a handkerchief, and whenever I would speak as the character I would pant and take big gulps of air.

3. Establish some background. I love when a player hands me a written story for his or her character’s background. Not everyone is a writer and not all characters spring full formed to the mind of the player. Sometimes they are little more than a collection of numbers and a vague idea where you want to go, and that’s fine, leaving some room to grow as the game progresses is ideal. But trying to establish at least one background detail gives the character some verisimilitude. You can always fall back on some staples of fiction, but avoid the orphan street waif who is secretly a prince; it’s been done to death!

Family is perhaps the easiest background to come up with. Who are this character’s parents? How did they influence their development? For my Cthulhu character I decided he lived with his mother. He was a mama’s boy, with an elderly overbearing mother taking care of her consumed a lot of his free time; the antiquarian job grew out of taking over his mother’s antique shop. Be aware that your GM may use family members, parent, and children, as bait, prisoners or cannon fodder. Embrace it, that is the nature of the game, it’s also a chance for you to be a hero and rescue them, or deal with the consequences of losing them.

4. Establish some goals. Establishing goals lets you know where you want to go with this character how you see him or her developing, but be sure to communicate them to your GM. That will allow the GM to bring some of those elements into play. Some games have implied goals, raid the dungeon and earn more treasure, learn new and more powerful spells, discover the secret lore of cults dedicated to alien gods who slumber beneath the waves, and they are all fine and good, but I am not talking about those!

Think out of the box; establish some goals not related to the rules and more related to the story of who the character is. They may have to do with the implied goals of the game, but give them a twist. Your neophyte warlock may yearn for power, but the reason he does so is so he can take revenge upon the master who ridiculed his meager skills and sent him away. Try to establish at least one short term and one long term goal, that way you have something attainable and something to work for through the game. My antiquarian character had a short term goal of kissing a girl; he knew nothing about women and yearned for love. His long term goal was to get away from his overbearing sick mother who controlled his life.

5. Change, change, change… A good, believable character doesn’t stay the same. If your character is exactly as he was when the campaign began all the way through then all your hard work is lost. Adapt, evolve, revisit those goals and as the game changes make sure you adjust them. Just as you change the numerical aspects of your character as you play, you need to move the story along. Ideally the GM will facilitate this, but if he or she doesn’t, make sure you mention the changes that occur to your character, the change in outlook, the new goals, it shows your commitment to this process.

Communicate with your GM, that is probably the most important piece of advice, let he or she know how you see the character grow and ask how you can facilitate this. Remember this is not a novel you are writing by yourself, this is a cooperative endeavor and (ideally) the GM wants to make sure everybody is having fun, so the spotlight will not always be on you. By the same token don’t expect the GM to remember every detail from a casual conversation, be polite be emphatic and remind the GM of what your goals are and how your character’s outlook changes.

What about the overweight, lovelorn antiquarian? I can’t tell you how my character evolved, we only played that campaign for a couple of sessions, but I sure would have loved to get to play him longer.

Not all characters are meant to be the subject of stories told and retold among friends, some may be only a footnote, but you won’t be able to tell until you play them so give them your all. I hope this advice is of use to some of you out there! What do you do with your character? What works for you? I’d sure like to know…

Related posts:

1. Powerless player
2. Making NPCs come alive!
3. Game Mastering Conundrums… Limiting player choices!

Here are a few ways you can start pushing your players alarms without throwing a monster right away:

• Mystery Words – This is done best with NPCs or objects.  Have your player characters start doubting their senses when NPCs tend to repeat a given phrase, inserting it in most conversation.  Having them spot it in odd places like the nutritional information label of a soup can, or in the middle of a magazine article makes them further question their sanity.  Something cryptic would work best.  If you plan to work solely on written media, then a scrambled code or random-seeming letters / numbers  / doodles would work as well.
• Displacement – Suddenly, somewhere or someone that the characters are familiar with is gone, and nobody knows about it.  All other people don’t know what the characters are talking about.  This is extremely unsettling when the disappeared person is a family member or close friend.  Or when the place that is gone is something big, like a shopping mall, or a skyscraper.
• Watchers – Simply describing the fact that they’re being watched can set off all sorts of alarms for Player Characters.  Making it so that the person watching them is always in a vantage point that makes them difficult to get to is even more unsettling.
• Time / Memory Loss – Waking up to realize you’ve lost the last eight hours of your life is another way to throw Player Characters off balance.  Some GMs usually add on further complications, like waking up covered in blood, or some other immediate situation, but sometimes having them realize that they don’t remember anything is unsettling in and of itself.

These techniques are a great way to keep players off balance without having to resort to a combat encounter.  They often serve as a hook to a greater mystery, which leads to situations where the GM can feasibly insert monsters at his leisure or just keep the players guessing and fumbling in the dark.

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Thankfully in the age we live in most systems with a modicum of popularity live on in the internet. Some even thrive. Still it’s not easy seeing the one you love go away. If you’ve been playing long enough, before al Gore so generously gave us the Internet, you experienced it, a game line was cancelled and you had no more support, no new book coming out. It was like getting dressed for the prom and being stood up, if the prom was a game and corsages were dice!

Star Frontiers

What can I say about Star Frontiers that I have not said before? I remember when I first bought it. I saw it at the book store, I had already been playing D&D for a while and here was a game by the same company, TSR, for science fiction role playing, I had to have it. So I begged my mom for the $12 (I think that was the price but my memory is not what it used to) and purchased it. I examined the box, punched out the counters and soon was playing with my friends.

This was my first sci-fi game and I had so much fun with it. I played it through high school and into college. During those first months I got my hands in every supplement I could, which granted were not many, none of the local stores seem to have them. I had to mail order Zebulon’s Guide to the Frontier.

What I didn’t know was that by the time I discovered Star Frontiers the game was already dead! Zebulon’s Guide to Frontier Space (its proper name) was published in 1985. I discovered Star Frontiers in 1989, a good four years after. When I learned they were not producing any more supplements for the game I was heart broken. Mind you this did not stop me. I played the game for years; I believe the last session was played in 1993 or 1994. So it goes to show you, a game may be “dead” for a publisher but it lives on with the fans.

Despite my best efforts I’ve never completed my Star Frontiers collection. It along with the nearly, but not quiet, complete run of the Rom comic book, are among those nagging  things I have to get around to completing one day.

TORG

Despite proclaiming my love for the setting but my dislike for the game on a previous post, I was saddened to see the TORG rpg cancelled. Back then I worked on a comic book store that carried a wide selection of games (and if you are curious the shop is still around and it’s where I got the Orcus mini) where I got most of the supplements for the game. Those I could not buy I read at the store on lazy afternoons. That’s how I kept informed of the Possibility Wars.

I may not have liked every twist and turn the storyline took, but it was fun and exciting, and it felt like being part of something greater. That kind of collaboration and involvement is easy to imagine in our digital age, but back them, well it seems amazing.

When TORG ended I felt like part of my gaming childhood, or adolescence at least, died. By then I was older, wiser, and expected different things from my games. Perhaps  even took my games too seriously, but I have never given up hope of seeing a TORG revival. I guess you can’t keep a good game down!

Alternity

By this time the Internet was an integral part of my life and it was there where I learned of Alternity. TSR’s upcoming sci-fi game, a toolbox of rules and ideas that promised to do for sci-fi what AD&D 2^nd edition did for fantasy! (Say what you may about the system, I was a big AD&D 2^nd Ed fan, and played it for years.)

When it finally came out I snatched it up and soon after adapted a home brewed campaign I had been working on to the system. It was modular, fun, had a unique dice mechanic and is still today one of my favorite science fiction games I have ever played. It scaled easily to various genres of sci-fi and it allowed me to create the setting I wanted. Needless to say I was an immediate fan.

By this time I was not big on pre-published adventures (I’m still not a fan) so I skipped most of those. But I got most rule supplements. Many Alternity Fans are also fans of the Star Drive Campaign setting, but I was never enamored by it. Like many Alternity books it suffered from having really awful interior art. One campaign that had an amazing look and design was the Dark Matter book, the Alternity system take on modern role playing and the X-Files craze.

Both settings lived on long after the system was gone, but when Alternity was cancelled I lost what I liked most about the game line, the generic sci-fi rpg I could adapt for my compulsive home brewing. Thankfully Alternity lives on via a very active community alternityrpg.net. Every now and then I take the book down from the shelf, reread it and toy with the idea of starting a new Alternity campaign. I just might one of these days, I’ll let you know.

Big Eyes, Small Mouth 2^nd Edition

I never played Big Eye, Small Mouth (or BESM) 1^st edition, I heard great things about it. I have not been a fan of anime for many years but I did hear the game was easily adaptable for a super’s game. When the 2^nd edition came out I purchased it for specifically this purpose, to retool it as a superhero game. Guardians of Order actually did it for me and published Silver Age Sentinels. This was the last system I used for a supers campaign and despite its problems I loved it.

When they published the Tri-Stat dX system I used it for a sci-fi game, adapting the very same campaign I had played using Alternity some years before. When Guardians of Order went out of business I was sad to see the company go, but had hopes for the system when I learned White Wolf would publish the 3^rd edition under their ArtHaus imprint.

But then 3^rd edition came out and for me it lost some of the magic. The book was massive, and seemed so much more complex. It was so far off from the original BESM, it was not the game for me. So I realized the 2^nd edition I loved so much and the games that came from it were gone, and gaming was all the worse for it. At least dX is still out there so in a way the system I lived on.

Star Wars Saga Edition

As a child of the 70’s I grew up with Star Wars. I saw the original movie in theaters, endured the prequels and currently enjoy the Clone Wars TV series. So the attraction to a Star Wars RPG is obvious. I had the different editions of the D6 West End Games version, but never managed to get a campaign off the ground. Likewise the first two tries at a Star Wars rpg by Wizards of the Coast failed to capture the magic of Star Wars in the D20 format for me.

This all changed with the Saga System. For me it took the best of the D20 system and hammered it into a proper Star Wars game. I loved it from the time I read it; I played a short campaign using it and own most of the books. Those I have not purchased yet I’ll be getting soon.  I think the Saga System is easily adaptable to be a generic sci-fi game, and toyed with the idea of adapting it for a Rifts game. Fan made conversions for fantasy and Cthulhu games show the versatility of the game engine.

Wizards’ decision to cancel the line was a sad moment for me. By then I had stopped playing D&D 4^th edition so the only products I was buying from them were the Star Wars books. When the line ended my last ties to Wizards of the Coast were severed.

I’ve said it before, you can’t keep a good system down, and one of the developers of the Saga System is working on a system neutral adaptation of the rule system e20 System Evolved.  I find it very interesting, although some of the D&D 4^th edition elements in the preview worry me; I’m willing to give it a chance. I’m sure other Star Wars role playing games will come out in the future, the license is just too attractive. We’ll see what happens, but will it be as great as the Saga System?

Looking at this short list of games I realize three of the five games were sci-fi games, and another I used for a sci-fi game. I guess I’m still looking for the right game of this genre. So what systems have you enjoyed and were sad to see go the way of the dodo? I’d love to know…

Related posts:

1. Gen Con 2011, a retrospective… Part 1: Role Playing Games
2. History of West End Games
3. Food & Games

After much consideration and difficult deliberation, Michael and I have agreed on a winner. All entries were excellent, making the deliberation process an arduous one. We thank each and everyone who participated. It was really a close race, but we decided the winner is (drum roll please)….

• Philip Tucker

He is the winner of a digital copy of the Realms of Cthulhu book, congratulations! Philip has an excellent blog, DMing Basics. Be sure to swing by and congratulate him!

We also have two honorable mentions in the contest:

• David Henley
• Karlo J. Yeager

While we don’t have a book to give them, and we really wish we had one for everybody who sent in their entry, both David and Karlo have their entries included in the PDF we’ve put together. It contains the wining entry and the two honorable mentions for your reading enjoyment.

Again, congratulations to the winner and honorable mentions and thank you to everyone for participating. We’ll have more contest and giveaways in the future so be on the lookout for them!

Related posts:

1. Realms of Cthulhu Giveaway Contest
2. One-Page Dungeon Contest winners announced
3. June Solstice Giveaway contest

Since I have reviewed “Cthulhu Rising” just a few days ago, it’s pretty hard not to compare the two books. End Time definitely feels more “Lovecraftian” than Cthulhu Rising. But that doesn’t mean it’s the better book.

End Time starts with an extensive section about the future history. What finally lead to the End Time is as follows: (Warning! This section contains major spoilers!) Due to human tampering an enormous alien entity originally created by the Mi-Go awakens on the moon and starts to influence the moons orbit. R’lyeh rises above the ocean and all hell breaks loose. In the end humanity has to abandon Earth and flee to Mars. In 2056 the Earth the last message from Earth is received.

The book then provides some details on End Time Moon, End Time Mars (with the two human colonies Hope and Bradbury) and End Time Earth. Especially the sections about the two colonies are very detailed, but alas there are no maps. That’s one of the major drawbacks of the book. Aside from a few illustrations later in the book, End Time totally lacks artwork. The fact that the book’s layout is also pretty bland doesn’t improve things.

But back to the contents. End Time adds a few new Mythos creatures to the game (like the Cthunund Uleths and the Martians) and there’s also a new Great Old One by the name of Vulthoom. The Cthunund Uleths are definitely my favorite here, because they closely resemble the Thing from the John Carpenter movie.

A large section of End Time focuses on life and death on the Mars colonies. There’s even a section on the Martian Dreamlands. It’s obvious a lot of work went into developing the world in all its details but alas the book itself feels a bit unorganized and unfinished. But on the other hand a dedicated Keeper who wants to run a game using LaBossiere’s vision of the end times you’ll get a lot out of this book. It’s just not as easily consumable as Cthulhu Rising for example.

The book concludes with an extensive section of character creation and appropriate equipment for the 22st century. Perhaps I should also mention that a large section of the book contains Sanity rules and long descriptions of psychological disorders. I have admit I haven’t compared these rules to closely with the ones in the Call of Cthulhu rulebook, but I guess that there must be some subtle changes.

All in all, I have to admit I really like the setting presented in End Time. While it may not be 100% compatible with the canon, it’s interesting and adds some new aspects to the Mythos. But alas the presentation is not as good. The book could benefit from a reorganization and the addition of more and better artwork.

But if you can look beyond these issues, End Time is definitely worth it. End Time is available at DriveThruRPG for $13.50. Please note that this review was based on a read through of a PDF review copy provided by Chaosium.

Related posts:

1. Review: Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space
2. What time is it? Jade Regent time!
3. Review: Cthulhu Rising

Cthulhu Rising starts off as a classic SF setting. Humanity has reached the stars, FTL travel, extrasolar colonies, androids and artificial intelligence are commonplace. But behind all this lurks the shadow of the Mythos. Although the Mi-go have abandoned Pluto quite some time ago, they are still active on Earth. Several Deep Ones have migrated to the Jovian moon Europa and even deeper into space and Cthulhu still lies dreaming in the city of R’lyeh.

The first part of the book provides Keepers with extensive details on the politics of the 23rd century, the colonies and the future history. The second half of Part One focuses on the Mythos aspects of the setting. That way the basic setting and the GM material are somewhat separated. This allows Keepers to run Cthulhu Rising as a classic SF setting with no Mythos influences or they can pick and choose, which aspects of the Mythos they want to add to their game.

The rules section expands on Call of Cthulhu’s character creation rules, provides fitting backgrounds for the 23rd century and even adds Psychic Powers to the game. The combat rules of Call of Cthulhu are also expanded. The book concludes with an extensive list of equipment including energy weapons, power armor, and pretty much everything else an investigator might need.

All in all Cthulhu Rising is somewhat of a mixed bag. While I like the setting, the new Psychic powers and the overall presentation of the book, it does feel like a generic SF game with some Cthulhu tacked on, almost as if the Mythos sections were added as an afterthought. Don’t get me wrong, Cthulhu Rising is a great product, especially if you are into SF, but don’t expect the Mythos to be intertwined with the setting as in Cthulhutech for example.

I got my copy of Cthulhu Rising at DriveThruRPG. The 92-paged book sets you back $12.75. Later this week I will post my review of “End Time” which presents a totally different future…

Related posts:

1. Review: Realms of Cthulhu
2. Review: End Time
3. The Cold War and the Cthulhu Mythos

The success of the event was overwhelming. We had 6,298 page views last week and Cody from “Kingdom of Geeks” joined us and wrote several Mythos-related posts as well. Perhaps we should have these themed weeks more often!

But now let’s have a look at the contributions to the “Lovecraftian Week”. I want to start with Cody’s posts here:

• My Favorite Cthulhu Mythos and Cthulhu Mythos Inspired Adventures
• The Great Old Ones are Everywhere!
• Through The Eyes of the Cthulhu Mythos: Mothman

But he haven’t been lazy over here at Stargazer’s World, either, so without further ado, behold our contributions:

• Lazy Friday Video Post: The Adventures of Lil Cthulhu
• Lovecraft, how do I love thee? Let me count with my tentacles… – My Top 5 Favorite Lovecraftian Stories
• Lazy Thursday Video Post: PSA for Cthulhu
• Review: The Armitage Files
• Lovecraftian posts from the archives
• The Mythos is Everywhere
• Review: Realms of Cthulhu
• Old McWhateley had a cult… Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn! – My Top 5 Lovecraftian gaming products
• I AM CTHULHU!
• H.P. Lovecraft and his works

While the "Lovecraftian Week" is technically over, I’ve heard that my friend Roberto has still one unpublished post on the topic up his sleeves. Stay tuned, it will go live when the stars are right again!

Related posts:

1. Lovecraftian posts from the archives
2. The Stars Are Right!
3. Old McWhateley had a cult… Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn! – My Top 5 Lovecraftian gaming products

H. P. Lovecraft, the person, brings all sorts of conflicted opinions to a discussion. Michael presented a great overview on his life and works few days ago. He was definitely a man of his times. However, think what you may of the man, I love his writings. Some may think he was verbose or archaic but from the first time I read his works I was mesmerized. He’s up there among my favorite authors, Poe, Cortazar, Borges, Kafka, distinguished company. I regularly return to Lovecraft’s work, reread it and always find something new.

So what are my favorite stories by Lovecraft himself, or by others inspired by his work? Read on…

5. Call of Cthulhu:

The Kraken

Below the thunders of the upper deep;

Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,

His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep

The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee

About his shadowy sides; above him swell

Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;

And far away into the sickly light,

From many a wondrous grot and secret cell

Unnumber’d and enormous polypi

Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.

There hath he lain for ages, and will lie

Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,

Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;

Then once by man and angels to be seen,

In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Well it should come as no surprise that The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft makes the list!  After playing the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game this was the first of Lovecraft’s stories I read. I was a teen and I know that upon first reading I did not understand all the complexities in the story. Still the details of the tale, style, structure and themes set in my mind what to expect from Lovecraftian stories.

The three parts of the story, the tale of the artist gone mad, the cult to the ancient creature and the tale of the sailors coming upon the nightmarish city out at sea create a sense of dread and the unknown that touches upon primal fears. It also serves as a handy template for the type of stories that can be told in the Mythos milieu where investigation and discovery are more important than combat, and knowledge is more valuable than coin. But beware the price of knowledge, for it may well be your sanity! (For some reason writing this has brought on an attack of excessive melodrama, back to the post…)

The story is well known by lovers of the Mythos, so a straight gaming adaptation would be difficult, but reading it provides all sorts of interesting ideas and tropes that can be used in Lovecraftian gaming. Here are some adventure see ideas inspired by the story:

Idea #1 – The characters work or are visitors at an inaccessible insane asylum, or maybe they became stranded there. Perhaps there is a storm, a flood, a tornado, some seemingly natural disaster that keeps them from leaving as the patient slowly begin to go mad around them. Like the artists in the first part of The Call of Cthulhu they are being affected by the rise of R’lyeh from the depths of the ocean. If you want to make the story more complex perhaps a patient is a former cultist and is influencing the other patients or one of the doctors in the staff is in the possession of some ancient tome and has performed a ritual that is causing the madness. The inmates escape and the characters are suddenly the prey of the deranged! Ideally it can be set to occur in the same timeframe as the story, March 23^rd to April 2^nd 1925. If you want to set it in a different time the idea can be accommodated, maybe it takes place in an asylum in a developing country, maybe in the 50s or 60s. I would avoid setting it in modern times where means of communication and transportation may circumvent some of the complexities of the plot.

Idea #2 – The characters investigate a mysterious religious cult, it may be because a loved one has joined the cult and disappeared or they work with the authorities, but something is fishy (excuse the pun) with the seemingly benign group. Not unlike the cult in the second part of The Call of Cthulhu, the members of the group are worshiping the Old Ones, but in a different guise. The common members may not even be aware of this. The plot could be as simple as rescuing the cult members, or as complex as a scheme to take the cult members to the Pacific Ocean and perform a ritual so R’lyeh rises from the depths!

The story is available online, and has inspired radio and comic book adaptations as well as a silent movie by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Even as a young reader I was appalled at some of the racism in the story, but if you’ve never read it, you owe it to yourself to do so.

4. The Whisperer in Darkness: In this story, also by Lovecraft, the supernatural is mixed with science fiction and the product is a very personal and eerie horror story. Here the unknown comes in the form of an alien race that claims to harbor no ill will towards mankind and even presents itself as willing to share with select humans the wonders of their technology and secrets.

While the Mi-Go claim to be benevolent; their nature is so alien, as is their technology that can remove a human’s brain and safely store it in a cylinder, and so far removed from the reality of the 1930’s that it may well be sorcery, the power of dark unknown creatures. I’ve read opinions and talked with people who believe the Mi-Go may have been truly enlightened beings, a superior intelligence misunderstood by the humans. Whenever I’ve read the story I always find the information the Mi-Go provide the protagonist through the guise of the Akeley suspect and agree with the general consensus that that the Mi-Go took the old man against his will.

Reading The Whisperer in Darkness always gives me ideas for possible mythos themed adventures. Some possible adventure seeds:

Idea #3 – This could be the plot to a sci-fi adventure in the vein of Event Horizon (a movie with obvious mythos underpinnings). The characters are part of the first human faster than light spaceship, built based on technology found in an alien archeological site in the solar system. When the mission travels through hyperspace they end up in the world of the Mi-Go and come into contact with the strange alien race. Perhaps the hyperspace engine does not take them to another part of the galaxy but to different dimensions where the laws of science are different!

Idea #4 – Until I read the Wikipedia article on the story I was unaware that The Whisperer in Darkness was one of the first literary appearances of the human brain preserved in a jar concept. The characters may acquire, through an inheritance, archeological dig or some other way a Mi-Go cylinder containing a brain. If they figure out how to use the equipment they may begin communicating with the disembodied brain, which guides their explorations of other Mi-Go ruins and the adventures to procure some of their artifacts. The brain may in fact be working for its nefarious purposes and may even seek a way to take over the body of one of the characters.

The story is also available online in the H.P Lovecraft Archive and the H.P, Lovecraft Historical Society is producing a film based on it. There is a teaser trailer here, and this is the official trailer.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd5gWGfnK5M

3. Brian Keene’s work: The novels of Brian Keene have a distinct Lovecraftian feel to them and some of his mythology integrates elements of the Cthulhu Mythos. I was introduced to his novels by a friend who heaped praises on his zombie novels and his book The Conqueror Worms, a world where it starts to rain one day and never stops. The creatures that seem to have taken over the world are definitely Lovecraftian. The zombies in his The Rising and City of the Dead novels are not the traditional zombies from the movies, but corpses animated by evil spirits from the Void.

His fiction is decidedly modern, dark and visceral. He can sometimes be over the top, morbid and gruesome. It may not be to everyone’s taste, but I am a big fan. I’ve read most of his work and I’m yet to be disappointed. The idea of powerful entities predating the Creator and vying for control of the multiverse present a conflict not so much Lovecraftian but more akin to some of the later reinterpretations of August Derleth, but still the protagonists of Keene’s fiction fight a battle against the overwhelming forces of darkness and despair they cannot, with very few exceptions, win. That is much more Lovecraftian. I’m not saying Keene is unoriginal, on the contrary, I think he weaves the influence of modern horror, slasher movies, comic books and Lovecraft into his very effective and personal style.

I’m actually really surprised that, as far as I know, no one has attempted to create some RPG adaptation of his novels. If you like the Call of Cthulhu style of play (and come on would you be reading this if you didn’t?) and don’t mind playing ultimately doomed heroes, the settings of his various books are ideal for a horror campaign. If you want to read a book where the heroes might just have a chance, Dark Hollow and Ghost Walk present a place where heroes may just fight back the darkness, if only so briefly. Urban Gothic is an excellent take on the degenerate beings hiding among us unseen, but in a modern setting. If the subhuman creatures in the book have been there so long, who is to say there are not others just like them?

Are you still unsure about Keene? He has a serialized novel on his website, Deluge, a sequel to The Conqueror Worms. Just as he says on the webpage, reading the novel before Deluge is highly recommended, but if you want to get a feel for his style here is the chance. Hope you enjoy it!

2. A Study in Emerald: A short story by master storyteller Neil Gaiman (of Sandman fame) that combines Lovecraftian elements with Doyle’s famous Consulting Detective.  Sherlock Holmes meets Cthulhu! Nuff said! I don’t want to ruin anything for you. The story is available online at Neil Gaiman’s website. Go read it; the post will be here when you get back…

(And while you are there, read I Cthulhu, it’s a fun!)

Back? Good! I first read the book in the anthology Shadows over Baker Street, a great collection of stories that mix elements from the Sherlock Holmes milieu with the Cthulhu Mythos. The book is excellent. The Cthulhu by Gaslight supplement I mentioned in my previous Top Five Lovecraftian gaming products post would be ideal to adapting the ideas from A Study in Emerald. I really think it may not be suited to more traditional Cthulhu games and would be a great setting for a more pulp inspired adventure style. Here is an adventure seed for you:

Idea #5 – The characters are investigators, from either the 1920’s or modern times, and through a ritual or portal they end up in another world, the world where A Study in Emerald is set! How will they deal with this new situation, will they be able to fit in or will they quickly become known as enemies of the rulers of the land? The idea of running this game in a modern world extrapolated from the world presented in the story is too ambitious to even consider in this few sentences, but ask yourself, would the future world ruled by the Old Ones be a post-apocalyptic barren wasteland drained of live, or a world of tyrannical order?

Idea #6 – Not looking forward to running such a gloomy campaign… What about having your supers characters discover an alternate Earth just as the one presented in the story? How will your super character’s fare against the might of the Old Ones. Mixing Realms of Cthulhu and the Savage Worlds Super Powers Companion should be simple enough. “Horrid tentacled creature your reign of terror ends NOW!  So says Captain Hyperbole!”

1. The Dunwich Horror: And last but not least, the tale of Wilbur Whateley. The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft is to me the ultimate Lovecraftian story. It has everything, cults, mysteries, unfathomable creatures from beyond, forbidden lore, Miskatonic University and the Necronomicon! What is there NOT to like?

Ironically, this is one of those stories where the good guys actually win. It happens in the distance, seen through the eyes of the locals who only catch a glimpse of what’s going on, but nonetheless it’s a victory.  Yet the feeling remains that this is one small triumph in a much bigger and dangerous war where the humans have little influence.

There have been adaptations, stories set in Dunwich, the characters appear in the works of others, but I believe this story is a great template for a Lovecraftian game. I don’t have a specific idea or adventure seed for this story. I think the story itself is nicely self contained and would hate to intrude upon its perfection, but certainly elements, places and characters can populate other Cthulhu adventures. The story is online at the H.P Lovecraft Archive and I would love to know how it inspires you, what did you learn that you can apply to Lovecraftian gaming from it? If you are truly brave find the 1970 movie adaptation, be wary, it may cause Sanity loss! Here is the trailer…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM8EbSvNFqg

I trust the ideas peppered though the list inspire your own gaming. I’m sure some of them might be a little cliché, but hope at least some serve as starting points for your Lovecraftian games.

One last personal note… When I turned twenty I took an anthology of Lovecraft’s work with me to the beach. I had not read his work for some years and on that day I wanted an old friend with me. While my friends had fun in the sun I sat down with the book and read some of his short stories. For the first time I read these stories as an adult, not as a teen reading for the game I was playing, but as a mature, conscious reader. It was like reading the stories for the very first time. That day a tradition started. Ever since, for the last seventeen years, I always read some Lovecraft on my birthday. I guess the realization of our insignificance in the cosmic scheme of things keeps me grounded!

Related posts:

1. Mystara, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways!
2. Thrilling Noir Stories needs some more love
3. H.P. Lovecraft and his works

All the posts listed here are either about some Cthulhu game product, give advice how to improve your Cthulhu gameplay experience or just fool around with the Mythos. Nobody was harmed during the creation of this post.

Reviews

• Review: CthulhuTech Damnation View
• CthulhuTech Quickstart
• My experiences with “Trail of Cthulhu”
• Review: Lovecraftian Tales from the Table
• CthulhuTech
• The HPLHS Props & Fonts CD

Advice

• Torso Murders
• Instant Soundtrack for your Cthulhu campaign
• The end is nigh!
• Horror Improved!

Odds & Ends

• Lazy Easter Monday Video Post: Elder Sign
• “Blog of a new RPGer” interview
• Lazy Friday Video Post: The Whisperer in Darkness
• A Study in Emerald
• Creepy!
• Spreading some random madness
• A Colder War

I hope I didn’t miss anything! I don’t want to fight those pesky Mythos creatures anytime soon.

Related posts:

1. Lovecraftian Week: Roundup post
2. CthulhuTech Quickstart
3. The Stars Are Right!

Hopefully it will be equal parts nostalgia and mini-review; I’ll try to include some gaming tidbits or ideas that can be of use to you. So without further ado gentle reader here we go…

5. Call of Cthulhu RPG (3^rd Edition): This was my first Call of Cthulhu product. Well that’s not technically true, since it wasn’t mine. In the late 80’s when we were starting to play role-playing game we didn’t have money to buy every game and each person got the game that they wanted to run; we often mail ordered games together to save on shipping and handling. I don’t remember what I ordered that particular time, but my friend Luis ordered the Call of Cthulhu 3^rd edition Boxed Set and became our official Cthulhu Keeper.

Boxed Sets have a special place in my heart. There is some sort of magic to opening that box and taking out all the different components. I remember that after Luis read the booklets, I got to read the Investigator’s Book with its red cover and the profile of the pensive man. Inside the sparsely illustrated book I got my introduction to Lovecraft and the Call of Cthulhu game. Although I must admit that upon first reading the book there were some details that confused me (for some reason the Resistance Table was hard for me to understand, but I was a pretty green gamer back then). The sample Harvey Walters’ character sheet and the one page example of play at the end of the booklet fired up my imagination and creativity.

Another thing that got me was the reading lists. By this time I knew who H.P Lovecraft was, but I was YET to read any of his works. After playing the game I became obsessed with reading the mythos stories and thus began a long love affair with Lovecraft and works inspired by his writings.

Years later my friend Luis moved and couldn’t take all his gaming books and I inherited his Call of Cthulhu boxed set. It’s still in my collection; the box has almost all the original components: The Investigator’s Book, The Keeper’s Book, the Sourcebook for the 1920s, character sheets and a map of the world. Only missing are the dice and the cardstock investigator figures.

But I got something better, copies of our old characters! The Keeper used to keep our character sheets (ironic I know) and when I opened the box I found some of the old character sheets we played with. I don’t think these are the very first character we used, but these were some of the first investigators we played. I’ve collected those character sheets into one PDF file, Including a copy of my character Rupert Edgard “Iggy” McNuggart, historian and antiquarian; for anyone interested in seeing what we played back then around 1995. Be aware we created these characters using the 3^rd edition rules, and excuse any mistakes made, we were all eager teenagers back then.

I have later editions of Call of Cthulhu in my collection, even the Basic Role-Playing game system I first experienced in Call of Cthulhu, but nothing compares to the thrill I got from the boxed set!

4. Cthulhupunk: The Cthulhupunk book is a GURPS sourcebook for playing Lovecraftian adventures in a cyberpunk world. Although the book is out of print (according to the Steve Jackson website) you can still get copies out there on the Internet. Later editions of the book have a nicer cover, but my copy from 1995 is graced with the art of Albert Slark, showing a cyborg stalked by a Hound of Tindalos. While I’ve seen other pieces by Albert Slark and love some of them, let’s say this is not one of those pieces. Despite the horrid cover, this is one excellent book.

By 1995 I was better versed in the Lovecraftian mythos. I had read the stories and played games set in the 1920s and modern times, but here was a thrilling idea, Lovecraftian adventures in a cyberpunk setting. Besides my love for the mythos I also brought the book because of the author, Chris W. McCubbin. I am a big fan of his work and back then he wrote one of my favorite columns in White Wolf Magazine, Out of the Parent’s Basement. So when I saw the book I snatched it up! I love GURPS sourcebooks, even if I rarely play the game, and this book did not disappoint.

The layout and art are excellent, set the tone of the book most effectively and are of exceptional quality. The first chapter, an overview of the Cthulhu Mythos is a clear and concise presentation, ideal to introduce the uninitiated to the concepts. I particularly like the timeline. The second chapter, the Cthulhu World, presented the dark future where the game is set. The distant time of 2045!

Fifteen years after it was written the future story of our world is badly outdated. The Commonwealth of Independent States that came into existence after the fall of the Soviet Union, and must have seemed so important back then, is given greater geopolitical importance that it had in our world and their dissolution is a harbinger of dark times in the game’s timeline. Still it is amazing some of the things the author predicted that echo real life events, devastating hurricanes, pandemics, the stock market collapse, and drug wars. Our world is not quiet the one portrayed in the book but it certainly has elements in place.

The Bestiary and Investigator chapters are GURPS specific and may not be as useful for gamers not using the system but the creature write up are informative and the weird science devices are imaginative and dark. The Cultist and the Adventure Seed chapters are chock full of ideas for adventure set in this setting.

Here is MY adventure seed idea for Cthulhupunk: I’ve always wanted to run a Cthulhupunk adventure where the players are hired by a music company executive to “procure” the sheet music to a particular piece. The executive claims the composer is an eccentric who still writes music in paper and although he was paid for his work he refuses to relinquish it. If the players investigate the composer was very popular and successful until he worked on a particularly disastrous production that was generally panned by the critics and ignored by the fans. Further investigation reveals the composer worked with sounds recorded by American historian Rupert Edgard McNuggart during an Antarctic expedition in the early 20^th century. The sheet music is actually part of a ritual to awaken or call terrible things from beyond our world. What will the characters do? That’s just an idea…

I think Savage Worlds would be a great fit for a Cthulhupunk campaign, and there is already a Savage Wolds Cthulhu book, Realms of Cthulhu. But if you want to do the conversion yourself there are documents out on the internet to help you. You can also see some sample NPCs at the Steve Jackson Games website to wet your appetite for the book.

3. Cthulhu by Gaslight: Of all the books on my list this is the last one I got. Surprising since Victorian England is one of my favorite time periods, but nevertheless I did not get this book until some years ago. It includes a great overview of the times, politics, timeline, travel, even clothing and fashion, details for creating Investigators for this time period and a great series of adventures. While I don’t usually run pre-made adventures, the adventures in the book contain many great ideas and details for adventures set in a period not everybody is familiar with. The map of London and the color plates are up to usual Chaosium standards. A great book overall.

I can’t wait for the publication of Space 1889 Red Sands, which Michael reviewed some weeks ago, so I can mix my love for Space 1889 with the Cthulhu mythos. Imagine discovering a temple to the Great Old Ones in Mars, protected by degenerate High Martians, or perhaps a Mi-Go settlement. The possibilities! However I’m not the first person to suggest this.  There is an article in heliograph.com about exactly this idea.

Even if you don’t want to mix your horror and your retro sci-fi there are many adventuring opportunities in Cthulhu by Gaslight regardless of the system you use.  Here is another Adventure Seed Idea: I love the spirit of exploration of the age, with so many opportunities to discover the secret places long forgotten or hidden away. The characters begin in London where the family of a friend lost in exotic places asks the characters for their help. They find a map hidden among his papers and must fight the cultists who want to recover the map, followed by a mad dash across the world to reach the location before the cultists. What awaits there? This could be played as a pulpish adventure or a dark and dangerous tale in the vein of Lovecraft’s stories.

This book is an excellent source of information for the period, whether you play Call of Cthulhu or not. Highly recommend!

2. Call of Cthulhu d20: If you’ve read any of my previous posts this must come as NO surprise. I’m a big D20 fan and the possibility of playing Call of Cthulhu with the D20 rule set just tickled my fancy. Granted the nature of the system results in a different gaming feel. Investigators in the D20 version are more resilient, but the author, Monte Cook, did a great job of capturing the feel of the mythos and paring down some aspects to make the characters feel like normal people, not super characters of other d20 games.

I like how the heroes play, in some ways more than I like how D20 Modern characters work. They used the Insanity mechanic from Call of Cthulhu, a great idea since I think it’s one of the strengths of the Chaosium game. Through numeric and mechanical formulas it emulates how the characters lose their minds. If you have players that love role-playing it gives them an idea of how to play this. For the more mechanically minded there is the real fear of the ever shrinking Sanity. A very elegant mechanic indeed!

There is also the fact that the mythos creatures in the book can be used in other D20 games. Now I had the stats so my D&D character could conceivably fight Cthulhu. Ask my players, they will tell you there is always some Lovecraftian feel to my games, no matter the genre or the system.

Although the book is out of print there are resources out there for the enterprising GM. Yog-Sothoth.com has D20 conversions for various adventures, including the famous Masks of Nyarlathotep. There is even an online character generator. The characters in the PDF earlier in the post were actually rolled up to play Masks of Nyarlathotep. Imagine the D20 characters finding the journal, or letters from a long dead family member and how it draws them into the adventure… Call of Cthulhu D20 may be dead but definitely not forgotten!

1. Deities and Demigods, the Cthulhu Mythos: This was my very first contact with the Cthulhu Mythos! I had just begun playing D&D some months before when a neighbor had a garage sale. To my surprise and delight he had been a D&D player and was selling his collection. I purchased an early edition of Deities and Demigods for $10, one that included the Melnibonean Mythos and of course the Cthulhu Mythos.

The Erol Otus art captured my imagination; here were horrific creatures, pools of eyes and mouths, Cthulhu with its horrific stare. I read and re-read that chapter, but I never unleashed any of the more powerful creatures upon my unsuspecting players, some deep ones perhaps. I did roll the dice when they mentioned the name Hastur to see if the Unnamable One appeared. There was a 25% chance… Alas, he never did!

If you can get your hands on a copy I believe the Cthulhu Mythos as they appeared in Deities and Demigos would be great for old school games out there such as the Basic Fantasy Role Paying Game or OSRIC.

This first contact with things Lovecraftian began my long descent into the Lovecraftian world. It piqued my interest as well as that of some of my friends, it led to us playing Call of Cthulhu and my voracious reading of all things Lovecraft. This interest continues, I believe I’ve read most of what Lovecraft wrote and many of the stories inspired by the Mythos.

As a final note, I realize some of my Top 5 choices may seem a little dated (hey I’m not denying my age) and I may have missed some of the newer Cthulhu themed games out there. Some like Cthulhutech and Trail of Cthulhu I am yet to read and I am looking forward to the Realms of Cthulhu for Savage Worlds I already ordered (hey writing this had some effect on my wallet!). But I know my good friend Michael is a fan of the first two and has written about them before so even if they are not on the list I know they are well represented.

Well that’s all for now, the first Top 5 list is done!

What are your favorite Lovecraftian gaming products?

Related posts:

1. Lovecraftian Week: Roundup post
2. Review: Cthulhu Rising
3. Lovecraftian posts from the archives

Lovecraft’s life
Howard Philips Lovecraft was born August 20, 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island. His father, Winfield Scott Lovecraft, became psychotic when Howard was three years old and died in a mental institution a few years later. He was raised by his mother, two aunts and his grandfather, who sparked Howard’s interest in literature. In his childhood, Howard Philips Lovecraft was often sick and supposedly suffered from night terrors that influenced his works later.

Lovecraft lived a very reclused secluded life and after the death of his grandfather his mother was his only contact. This changed when he drew the attention of the president of the United Amateur Press Association. Over the years he built up a network of correspondents including authors like Robert Bloch, Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard. While Lovecraft has mostly written poetry and essays before he turned to fiction in 1917. In 1919 Lovecraft’s mother was institutionalized like his father before and she died only two years later from surgery complications. Losing his mother had devastating effects on him.

Three years later, at an amateur journalist convention in Boston, he met the seven year-older Sonia Greene which he married a year later in 1924. But again things went not well for Howard since his spouse lost her hat shop and was forced to move to Cleveland for employment. He stayed in Brooklyn, but was unable to find any work in the midst of Red Hook’s immigrant population.  This had probably a direct influence on his racism and xenophobia that can be felt throughout his works. A couple of years later, Lovecraft divorced his wife amicably and returned to live with his aunts in Providence. After returning to his home town he wrote a lot of his best-known stories an novels like “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” and the “At the Mountains of Madness”.

Even though he was a very prolific writer in the last years before his death, we was unable to make a living. H.P. Lovecraft died as a poor man on March 15, 1937 in Providence.

Lovecraft’s work
Today Lovecraft is widely known for his horror novels and short stories. He created what is now known as the “Cthulhu mythos” (a term created by his friends August Derleth). Most of his stories are set into a fictional part of Massachusetts, called the Miskatonic Valley. The fictional Miskatonic rivers flows through this valley and on his banks lie the communities Arkham, Dunwich and others. Arkham is also home of the Miskatonic University which plays a major role in Lovecraft’s works. The university is known for its vast collection of occult books like the Necronomicon, the Unaussprechliche Kulte by Junzt and the Book of Eibon.

In most of his stories normal people discover that the world is not as it seems. Man is not the pinnacle of evolution but is lost when confronted by powerful alien beings like Cthulhu, Azatoth and others. These extra-dimensional godlike beings have ruled over Earth once and will do so again in the future and there’s nothing man can do to stop them. Lovecraft’s protagonists often try to fight the creatures of the Mythos but often pay with their lives or their sanity.

Lovecraft’s stories are filled with hints at bizarre creatures with disturbing names, strange cults that predate humanity, occult books containing magic rituals and truths about the nature of the universe that could shatter any sane person’s mind. While his stories have a lot of horror elements, they can also be considered part of the science fiction and fantasy genres.

If you want to learn more about H.P. Lovecraft, his life and his works, check out the excellent Wikipedia article about him.

Gaming inpired by the Cthulhu Mythos
What makes H.P. Lovecraft’s works such a great setting for gaming is not only the detailed background created by him and other authors like August Derleth or Robert E. Howard. It’s also the fact that his stories are set into our world. Even if you know nothing about the Cthulhu Mythos you can start playing Call of Cthulhu (or most of the other Cthulhu mythos-inspired games) without much trouble. Its actually even more fun if you know almost nothing about it and slowly discover (like the protagonists in Lovecraft’s stories) that unspeakable horrors lurk behind the known reality.

In most roleplaying games the players try to attain wealth and power. In most Cthulhu mythos-inspired books knowledge is the most important commodity. Investigation and research usually plays a major role and so players have a lot of opportunities for roleplaying and puzzle-solving. In most cases combat is seldom and deadly, but there are several games that support a more action-oriented adventures.  And as you can see with Green Ronin’s Freeport setting, elements from Lovecraft’s works can even easily added to a fantasy setting.

Roleplaying games inspired by the Cthulhu mythos can be a lot of fun, so if you haven’t tried playing one, you definitely should do so!

Related posts:

1. Lovecraftian Week: Roundup post
2. Lovecraft, how do I love thee? Let me count with my tentacles… – My Top 5 Favorite Lovecraftian Stories
3. The Stars Are Right!

You can get more information on the sale here. 30% off of all Chaosium products is quite a bargain. And if you are not sure Call of Cthulhu is the game for you, you can check out the CoC quickstart PDF, which is available for free from the Chaosium website. Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. Ia! Ia! Check out this great Realms of Cthulhu sale!
2. GUMSHOE Sale on RPGNow
3. Christmas in July Sale at DriveThruRPG!

Call of Cthulhu is probably the best known roleplaying game based on H.P. Lovecrafts works, but in the recent years several games inspired by the Cthulhu mythos has been released. Take Cthulhutech for example which is a clever mix between the supernatural horror and the mecha genre. Another pretty recent game set into Lovecraft’s world is Ken Hite’s Trail of Cthulhu which makes use of the GUMSHOE system.

And even in some Fantasy game that are don’t refer to the Cthulhu mythos directly, influences of Lovecraft’s work can be found. Green Ronin’s Freeport is an example of a setting that contains cults, gods and creatures clearly influenced from the Cthulhu mythos.

So, stay tuned for some Lovecraftian goodness each day here at Stargazer’s World! And if you want to join the fun, just write something fitting the theme on your own blog, link back to this post and leave a comment here. It’s like some mini blog carnival this way. And feel free to use the logo I created (The Cthulhu artwork was created by DeviantArt user The-First-Magelord and was used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License) for that purpose.

Now there’s only one thing to add: “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”

Related posts:

1. Lovecraftian Week: Roundup post
2. First Look: Chthonian Stars
3. Review: Cthulhu Rising

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWT07iRvI9M

And if that still doesn’t help you, you might consider reading a really good book.

Related posts:

1. Lazy Friday Video Post: Roll a D6
2. Lazy Friday Video Post: ETA
3. Lazy Friday Video Post: A Night’s Work

Or do you think that showing “Call of Cthulhu” before starting a campaign is too revealing? Have you ever used movies to introduce your players to a new campaign? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Related posts:

1. Lazy Friday Video Post: Aurora
2. Lazy Friday Video Post: The Wild Hunt
3. Lazy Friday Video Post: A Gentlemen’s Duel